Britain ought to make its prisoners work in “chain gangs” to clear litter
building up on the side of major public roads, a Conservative MP has said.

Andrew Percy, MP for Brigg and Goole, made the suggestion after becoming concerned about rubbish mounting up by motorways in his constituency, including hundreds of bottles of urine thrown away by lorry drivers.

“In the US I have seen chain gangs out clearing highways – why can’t we do that here?” he said. “We have criminals expected to pay back – why not get them out there doing something of use?”

Mr Percy has written to the Highways Agency to about growing piles of litter on the M62 and A63 in East Yorkshire following complaints from his constituents.

“We need a British equivalent of the US chain gang,” he said. “The only risk we have in this country is there are too many do-gooders claiming it’s against [prisoners’] human rights.

“We don’t necessarily need them to be wearing orange jump suits and chained together, but what we should be looking at is we’ve got all these people sat in prison who could be working in the community.”

Kenneth Clarke, the Justice Secretary, is a supporter of short “community sentences” where people work in their neighbourhoods rather than go to prison.

He has also unveiled plans to get prisoners to work for private companies within jails in the hope of instilling a culture of “purposeful hard work”. The minister has promised to double the number of inmates working up to 40 hours per week because they are a “wasted resource”.

However, Britain has never had “chain-gangs” like America, where Arizona is thought to be the only state still making its prisoners do hard labour.

Last year, an Arizona sheriff caused outrage after re-introducing chain gangs for women prisoners, whose tasks include burying the dead in paupers’ graves and clearing wasteland.